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December 10, 2008

Post: Yankees Sign Sabathia

According to a person familiar with the deal, the Yankees spoke to Sabathia and his agent in recent days about structuring the deal to allow Sabathia to opt out after the first two or three years, in case it turns out he really doesn't like New York.

Elsewhere, the Yankees are discussing a 4/66 deal with Derek Lowe and preparing a 4/64 offer to A.J. Burnett. ... Lowe (16.5 per year! wtf?) pitching with that infield behind him? Please, make it so!

26 comments:

It would have been nice to get some good pitching this winter as well for the Red Sox, but when Opening Day rolls around we'll forget about that and remember our good rotation... The Yankees will either be murder's row as far as pitching goes, or the richest nursing home in the country.

The Yankees will either be murder's row as far as pitching goes, or the richest nursing home in the country.

Mussina is gone, Pettitte is likely gone, the kids have proven nothing, Joba's coming back from injury -- so they got Wang and CC. Their aging lineup, which dropped from 1st to 7th or 8th in RS last year, is another year closer to the grave (with HGH and Abreu, their 2nd and 3rd best OPS+ guys possibly gone). And their farm has next to nothing solid on the horizon.

If the FKR stay strong, the MFY will finish no better than 3rd yet again.

If the Yankees do add Burnett and/or Sheets and/or Lowe then you have to expect that along with Joba and Wang they will roll out the best rotation in baseball in 2009.

However where it falls down is in two or three years when these guys start to fall apart if they don't before then.

Bias aside they are going for broke and it could come off. Fortunately the Sox aren't so desperate having won two championships this century so the FO will continue their method of team building, spending the big money on guys they can reasonably believe will maintain their performance and health throughout their contracts such as Dice-K and hopefully Teixeira (Drew I know doesn't fit into this theory).

Let the MFY have CC, Lowe, Burnett and Sheets. I'll take our group quite happily knowing that Beckett, Lester and at a stretch Dice-BB will hold their own. Whilst Burnett for example is obviously very good I don't see that he is so much better than what we have so why take those risks?

Sounds like the only other team to make an offer for CC was the Brewers, who came in at about 100 million.

So the Yankees outbid their only competition by 60%, gave a 7-year deal to a 300-pound pitcher who has logged 513 innings in the last 2 seasons, and gave in to his demand for an opt-out clause after three years.

(So whether he hates NYC or not, he can hit the market again after 2011 -- or stick around the MFY for the rest of this deal and pocket the other 90+ million!)

Sounds like the only other team to make an offer for CC was the Brewers, who came in at about 100 million.

So the Yankees outbid their only competition by 60%, gave a 7-year deal to a 300-pound pitcher who has logged 513 innings in the last 2 seasons, and gave in to his demand for an opt-out clause after three years.

I was thinking that, too. I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions (David Wells comes to mind), but it seems like pitchers who drag around C.C.'s weight have a tendency to break down pretty quickly.

Wells did break down a fair amount -- although his pitching arm stayed healthy and probably still is. Somewhere. On a ranch. The clink of beer cans...

A comment on RLYW brought up an interesting issue. Isn't the opt-out clause kind of good for the Yankees, because they can be rid of him in fewer years? Kind of make sure he doesn't like it too much in NYC? I think the answer might be that this isn't the case. Perhaps the contract is backloaded, so even if they wanted to get rid of him, they'd still be responsible for all those dollars, and perhaps for eating a huge number of them.

I doubt the Brewers' offer was the only other one out there. But obviously the Yanks bent over backwards...that seventh year. Ouch.

Jayson Stark is using words like "scary" and "terrifying" for the fact that they've signed CC and could sign still more prominent free-agent pitching. I say, "Eat me." Sure, with more consistent offense, the Yanks could do well next year, but it doesn't scare me. CC ain't unbeatable (his great run last year was in the NL). No amount of assurances are going to take away from the discomfort of playing for the Yanks. And...they'll still need some new hitting as well.

But I do hope we sign Tex, at least at 8 years. His like doesn't come along that often. We have the money...why not spend it? We mostly have what we need otherwise.

It's amazing that baseball continues to overpay for pitching, A-Rod makes the most money ,becuase he might just be the best player, but the best pitcher, it's far from CC and Far from Johan and Far from Zito. In my opinion the best pitcher is Roy Halladay, and he is a friggin bargain at 14.25 this year.....

CC and Johan are better than Halladay, I think. And, if they're not, they're certainly not very far.

Also, I don't think David Wells ever really broke down until he was old. From age 32 - 40 he threw at least 200 innings every year except one. If you go 32-42, he threw over 180 innings every year except one. Very few pitchers are that durable that late into their careers.

Sabathia is scary good. But the Yankees always have scary good players. A-Rod is scary good. Our offense is better, our pitching is still better, and our farm system is better. Don't even talk to me about our fielding. Also, Rivera has to break down at some point.

However its all about the circumstances; even the idea of Halladay going to free agency after his own age 28 season is flawed since that was the season he pitched just 141.2 (admittedly brilliant) innings so who knows what he would have been offered.

Halladay earns $14.25 because he chose to re-sign before free agency; imagine what he would get in this market considering that Burnett, older and inferior, could get 5/80 from the Braves.

8 years 200 million? Sounds ridiculous but I could well see the MFY going for it.

The same applies to A-Rod and Pujols...I'd take the latter (BoSox bias) myself if they were both free agents. Imagine what he might demand given that A-Rod got 10/320+.

L-girl said... 9Casey, you're too good to get suckered by the "20 win season" thing. You know win/loss record means next to nothing.

Thanks, I know that the wins don't really mean a thing, but he called him scary good, does CC Sabathia scare Red Sox fans? No..When they signed Randy Johnson everyone thought he would win 25 games a year.....Pitching in the AL East is hard and CC Sabathia is far from dominant all his numbers show that....Pedro Martinez was scary good, Josh Beckett when right is scary good, Clemens was scary good, Halladay is scary good...This deal is scary, it's them trying to make up for the fact they didn't get Santana last year..

You've almost certainly figured out that pitcher A is Beckett, B is Halladay, and C(C) is CC. If you want to argue that Halladay is better, I'd listen, but Halladay is four years older and has had more major injuries. Also, CC strikes out a whole lot more people, and strikeout pitchers tend to age better, if you listen to Bill James.

I'm not sure I see much of a way to improve our offense besides getting Tex -- unless we want to just ignore catching defense and get a catcher who can hit at all costs. It just seems to me that when you're a top-tier team, you have to go after these big signings...because otherwise, any attempt to improve is a matter of replacing a pretty good player with another pretty good player.

And, by the way, a Mets fan bartender last night swore up and down that it was reported on ESPN that Manny went back to the Dodgers to ask for the 2/45 deal back. Everyone was laughing their asses off. No one heard this nonsense, did they?

Burnett is not really all that good, even when healthy, which is not all that often. He's above average, but not all that far above average. I think one of Masterson or Buchholz will be better than Burnett over the next five years, if not both of them. To say nothing of Bowden and Hagadone. We don't really need starting pitching all that badly.